Adeujuan Adams, 15, of Rensselaer, seen here in a photo taken recently at the Shepard Center in Atlanta, where he is undergoing therapy after a May 25 stabbing in Albany nearly severed his spinal cord.

Adeujuan Adams, 15, of Rensselaer, seen here in a photo taken recently at the Shepard Center in Atlanta, where he is undergoing therapy after a May 25 stabbing in Albany nearly severed his spinal cord.

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Mohawk Ambulance members join air ambulance members as they move stabbing victim Adeujuan Adams to a waiting jet under the watchful eye of his mother Stephanie Sanders where he is to be transported to a specialized hospital in Atlanta by air ambulance at the Albany International Airport in Colonie, N.Y. June 15, 2012. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union). less

Mohawk Ambulance members join air ambulance members as they move stabbing victim Adeujuan Adams to a waiting jet under the watchful eye of his mother Stephanie Sanders where he is to be transported to a ... more

Photo: Matthew Hamilton

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Mohawk Ambulance member Peter Foust moves stabbing victim Adeujuan Adams to a waiting jet under the watchful eye of his mother Stephanie Sanders where he is to be transported to a specialized hospital in Atlanta by air ambulance at the Albany International Airport in Colonie, N.Y. June 15, 2012. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union). less

Mohawk Ambulance member Peter Foust moves stabbing victim Adeujuan Adams to a waiting jet under the watchful eye of his mother Stephanie Sanders where he is to be transported to a specialized hospital in ... more

Photo: Matthew Hamilton

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Fatal knifing in bike theft brings 18 years

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Albany

Juan "Killa" Anderson said he does not know why he plunged a knife into the neck of 15-year-old Adeujuan Adams on May 25, 2012, a wound that eventually took the teenager's life.

He will have 18 years to think it over.

An Albany County Court judge sentenced the reputed South End gang member to 18 years in prison Thursday for stabbing Adams during a 9:30 p.m. bike robbery on Third Avenue.

Adams was 16 when he died in March. Anderson stabbed Adams, a ninth-grader who attended Harriet Tubman Democratic High School in Albany, because he wanted his bicycle. He then punched and kicked Adams while he lay bleeding on the ground.

Assistant District Attorney Eric Galarneau said when he last visited Adams at his home a month before the victim's death, Adams was in a wheelchair and nearly incapacitated. He said Adams harbored no animosity toward Anderson and did not want Anderson to spend any more than 18 years in prison.

Adams did want to be in court to face his attacker.

"I just want to ask him why," Adams had said, according to the prosecutor.

Anderson, a reputed member of the Ryda Set gang in the South End, told a probation officer conducting a pre-sentencing report that he stabbed Adams not to steal his bike — but because Adams had been a bystander a month earlier when Anderson was assaulted.

He gave no explanation on Thursday.

"If I could go back and take it back I would ... I never intended to take someone's life," Anderson, 19, told Judge Stephen Herrick. "There's really no reason why. Just an act of anger. If I could take it back I would. But I can't. I just got to live with this for the rest of my life."

Herrick, in turn, said: "Mr. Anderson, that is the first time you've acted like a human being in front of me."

Herrick told Anderson he previously was a "hard, callous, uncaring...tough guy who doesn't care about anything." The judge said it was encouraging that Anderson finally showed humanity.

But he said Anderson's crime was more consistent with that persona.

Adams underwent intensive therapy at the Shepherd Center rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta. A tube was inserted in his neck to help him breathe. The community rallied around him and his family to help raise the roughly $11,000 needed to pay for the air ambulance flight to Georgia.

Adams died in March. His family and Anderson's were present for the sentencing. No victim statements were given in court.